Pre-Reformation in
Medieval England and
Medieval Scotland in 1415 Many of the individual ideas that were taken up by various reformers had historical pre-cursors; however, calling them
proto-reformers is controversial, as often their theology also had components that are not associated with later Protestants, or that were asserted by some Protestants but denied by others, or that were only superficially similar. One of the earliest persons to be praised as a Protestant forerunner is
Jovinian, who lived in the fourth century AD. He attacked
monasticism,
ascetism and believed that a saved believer can never be overcome by Satan. In the 9th century, the theologian
Gottschalk of Orbais was condemned for heresy by the Catholic Church. Gottschalk believed that the salvation of Jesus was limited and that his redemption was only for the elect. The theology of Gottschalk anticipated the Protestant reformation.
Ratramnus also defended the theology of Gottschalk and denied the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist; his writings also influenced the later Protestant reformation.
Claudius of Turin in the 9th century also held Protestant ideas, such as
faith alone and rejection of the supremacy of Peter. In the late 1130s,
Arnold of Brescia, an Italian
canon regular became one of the first theologians to attempt to reform the Catholic Church. After his death, his teachings on
apostolic poverty gained currency among
Arnoldists, and later more widely among
Waldensians and the
Spiritual Franciscans, though no written word of his has survived the official condemnation. In the early 1170s,
Peter Waldo founded the Waldensians. He advocated an interpretation of the Gospel that led to conflicts with the Catholic Church. By 1215, the Waldensians were declared heretical and subject to persecution. Despite that, the movement continues to exist to this day in Italy, as
a part of the wider Reformed tradition. In the 1370s, Oxford theologian and priest
John Wycliffe—later dubbed the "Morning Star of Reformation"—started his activity as an English reformer. He rejected papal authority over secular power (in that any person in mortal sin lost their authority and should be resisted: a priest with possessions, such as a pope, was in such grave sin), may have
translated the Bible into
vernacular English, and preached anticlerical and biblically centred reforms. His rejection of a real divine presence in the elements of the Eucharist foreshadowed Huldrych Zwingli's similar ideas in the 16th century. Wycliffe's admirers came to be known as "
Lollards". Beginning in the first decade of the 15th century,
Jan Hus—a Catholic priest, Czech reformist, and professor—influenced by John Wycliffe's writings, founded the
Hussite movement. He strongly advocated his reformist
Bohemian religious denomination. He was
excommunicated and
burned at the stake in
Constance,
Bishopric of Constance, in 1415 by secular authorities for unrepentant and persistent heresy. After his execution, a revolt erupted. Hussites defeated five continuous crusades proclaimed against them by the
Pope. Later theological disputes caused a split within the Hussite movement.
Utraquists maintained that both the bread and the wine should be administered to the people during the Eucharist. Another major faction were the
Taborites, who opposed the Utraquists in the
Battle of Lipany during the
Hussite Wars. There were two separate parties among the Hussites: moderate and radical movements. Other smaller regional Hussite branches in
Bohemia included
Adamites,
Orebites,
Orphans, and Praguers. The Hussite Wars concluded with the victory of
Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, his Catholic allies and moderate Hussites and the defeat of the radical Hussites. Tensions arose as the
Thirty Years' War reached Bohemia in 1620. Both moderate and radical Hussitism was increasingly persecuted by Catholics and Holy Roman Emperor's armies. In the 14th century, a German mysticist group called the
Gottesfreunde criticized the Catholic church and its corruption. Many of their leaders were executed for attacking the Catholic church and they believed that God's judgement would soon come upon the church. The Gottesfreunde were a democratic lay movement and forerunner of the Reformation and put heavy stress of holiness and piety, Starting in 1475, an Italian Dominican friar
Girolamo Savonarola was calling for a Christian renewal. Later on, Martin Luther himself read some of the friar's writings and praised him as a martyr and forerunner whose ideas on faith and grace anticipated Luther's own doctrine of justification by faith alone. Some of Hus' followers founded the
Unitas Fratrum—"Unity of the Brethren"—which was renewed under the leadership of
Count Nicolaus von Zinzendorf in
Herrnhut,
Saxony, in 1722 after its almost total destruction in the
Thirty Years' War and the
Counterreformation ("Catholic Reformation"). Today, it is usually referred to in English as the
Moravian Church and in German as the
Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine. In the 15th century, three German theologians anticipated the reformation:
Wessel Gansfort,
Johann Ruchat von Wesel, and
Johannes von Goch. They held ideas such as
predestination,
sola scriptura, and the
church invisible, and denied the Catholic view on justification and the authority of the Pope, also questioning
monasticism. Many protestant reformers also identified the pope as AntiChrist Some reasons as to why, include that in the canon law
Decretum Gratiani Distinctio 96 Chapter "satis evideter", protestants considered the pope claiming illegitimate divine authority including the name "god" which rightly belonged to God. Some also took issue with the interpretation of canon law by some Catholics such as the canonist Zelensinus De Cassanus who wrote the phrase "
Dominum Deum Nostrum Papam" or others such as "Deus in Terra" (God on earth) to refer to the pope. Wessel Gansfort also denied
transubstantiation and anticipated the Lutheran view of justification by faith alone.
Reformation in Central Europe on the eve of the
Thirty Years' War in 1618 The
Protestant Reformation began as an attempt to reform the
Catholic Church. On 31 October 1517,
Martin Luther allegedly nailed his
Ninety-five Theses, also known as the Disputation on the Power of Indulgences, on the door of the
All Saints' Church in
Wittenberg, Germany, detailing doctrinal and practical abuses of the Catholic Church, especially the selling of
indulgences. The theses debated and criticized many aspects of the Church and the papacy, including the practice of
purgatory,
particular judgment, and the authority of the pope. Luther would later write works against the Catholic devotion to
Virgin Mary, the intercession of and devotion to the saints, mandatory clerical celibacy, monasticism, the authority of the pope, the ecclesiastical law, censure and
excommunication, the role of secular rulers in religious matters, the relationship between Christianity and the law, good works, and the sacraments. The
Reformation was a triumph of literacy and the new
printing press invented by
Johannes Gutenberg. Luther's translation of the Bible into German was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy, and stimulated as well the printing and distribution of religious books and pamphlets. From 1517 onward, religious pamphlets flooded much of Europe. During the Reformation, the Bible was translated into the native tongues of various European peoples, granting the common man access to sacred scripture, rather than relying solely on the Church's Latin version and interpretation. These translations, once forbidden, stirred a profound shift in religious thought, literacy, education, and the spread of Protestant ideas across parts of Holy Roman Empire and independent kingdoms. Reformers such as Martin Luther translated the Bible into German, making it accessible to ordinary German speakers. William Tyndale produced an English translation, although his efforts were met with resistance and he was captured in Antwerp before it was completed. Condemned for heresy, he was executed by strangulation and then burned at the stake at Vilvoorde in 1536. Similar translations into other native tongues took place across Europe. Following the excommunication of Luther and condemnation of the Reformation by the Pope, the work and writings of
John Calvin were influential in establishing a loose consensus among various groups in Switzerland, Scotland, Hungary, Germany and elsewhere. After the expulsion of its Bishop in 1526, and the unsuccessful attempts of the
Bern reformer
William Farel, Calvin was asked to discipline the city of
Geneva. His
Ordinances of 1541 involved a collaboration of Church affairs with the city council and consistory to bring morality to all areas of life. After the establishment of the Geneva academy in 1559, Geneva became the unofficial capital of the Protestant movement, providing refuge for Protestant exiles from all over Europe and educating them as Calvinist missionaries. The faith continued to spread after Calvin's death in 1563. Protestantism also spread from the German lands into France, where the Protestants were nicknamed
Huguenots. Despite heavy persecution, the Reformed tradition made steady progress across large sections of the nation, appealing to people alienated by the obduracy and the complacency of the Catholic establishment. French Protestantism came to acquire a distinctly political character, made all the more obvious by the conversions of nobles during the 1550s. This established the preconditions for a series of conflicts, known as the
French Wars of Religion. The civil wars gained impetus with the sudden death of
Henry II of France in 1559. Atrocity and outrage became the defining characteristics of the time, illustrated at their most intense in the
St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of August 1572, when the Catholic party annihilated between 30,000 and 100,000 Huguenots across France. The wars only concluded when
Henry IV of France issued the
Edict of Nantes, promising official toleration of the Protestant minority, but under highly restricted conditions. Catholicism remained the official
state religion, and the fortunes of French Protestants gradually declined over the next century, culminating in
Louis XIV's
Edict of Fontainebleau which revoked the Edict of Nantes and made Catholicism the sole legal religion. In response to the Edict of Fontainebleau,
Frederick William I, Elector of Brandenburg declared the
Edict of Potsdam, giving free passage to Huguenot refugees. In the late 17th century, many Huguenots fled. A significant community in France remained in the
Cévennes region. Parallel to events in Germany, a movement began in Switzerland under the leadership of Huldrych Zwingli. Although the two movements agreed on many issues of theology, some unresolved differences kept them separate. A long-standing resentment between the German states and the
Swiss Confederation led to heated debate over how much Zwingli owed his ideas to Lutheranism. The German Prince
Philip of Hesse saw potential in creating an alliance between Zwingli and Luther. A meeting was held in his castle in 1529, now known as the
Colloquy of Marburg, which has become infamous for its failure. The two men could not come to any agreement due to their disputation over one key doctrine. In 1534, King
Henry VIII put an end to all papal jurisdiction in
England, after the Pope failed to
annul his marriage to
Catherine of Aragon (due to political considerations involving the Holy Roman Emperor); this opened the door to reformational ideas. Later on, King Henry rejected the Pope's authority, instead of creating and accepting authority over the Church of England, a type of hybrid church that clashed together some Catholic doctrine and some Protestant ethics. The Reformation in Scotland culminated ecclesiastically in the establishment of a church along Reformed lines, and politically in the triumph of English influence over that of France. John Knox is regarded as the leader of the Scottish Reformation. The
Scottish Reformation Parliament of 1560 repudiated the pope's authority by the
Papal Jurisdiction Act 1560, forbade the celebration of the Mass and approved a Protestant Confession of Faith. It was made possible by a revolution against French hegemony under the regime of the regent
Mary of Guise, who had governed Scotland in the name of her absent
daughter. Some of the most important activists of the Protestant Reformation included
Jacobus Arminius,
Theodore Beza,
Martin Bucer,
Andreas von Carlstadt,
Heinrich Bullinger,
Balthasar Hubmaier,
Thomas Cranmer,
William Farel,
Thomas Müntzer,
Laurentius Petri,
Olaus Petri,
Philipp Melanchthon,
Menno Simons,
Louis de Berquin,
Primož Trubar and
John Smyth. In the course of this religious upheaval, the
German Peasants' War of 1524–25 swept through the
Bavarian,
Thuringian and
Swabian principalities. After the
Eighty Years' War in the
Low Countries and the
French Wars of Religion, the confessional division of the states of the Holy Roman Empire eventually erupted in the
Thirty Years' War between 1618 and 1648. It devastated much of
Germany, killing between 25% and 40% of its population. The main tenets of the
Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War, were: • All parties would recognize the
Peace of Augsburg of 1555, by which each prince would have the right to determine the religion of his own state, the options being Catholicism, Lutheranism, and now Calvinism. (the principle of
cuius regio, eius religio) • Christians living in principalities where their denomination was
not the established church were guaranteed the right to practice their faith in public during allotted hours and in private at their will. • The treaty also effectively ended the papacy's pan-European political power.
Pope Innocent X declared the treaty "null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all times" in his bull ''''. European sovereigns, Catholic and Protestant alike, ignored his verdict.
Post-Reformation camp meeting during the
Second Great Awakening in the U.S. The Great Awakenings were periods of rapid and dramatic religious revival in Anglo-American religious history. The
First Great Awakening was an evangelical and revitalization movement that swept through Protestant Europe and
British America, especially the
American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s, leaving a permanent impact on
American Protestantism. It resulted from powerful preaching that gave listeners a sense of deep personal revelation of their need of salvation by Jesus Christ. Pulling away from ritual, ceremony, sacramentalism and hierarchy, it made Christianity intensely personal to the average person by fostering a deep sense of spiritual conviction and redemption, and by encouraging introspection and a commitment to a new standard of personal morality. The
Second Great Awakening began around 1790. It gained momentum by 1800. After 1820, membership rose rapidly among
Baptist and
Methodist congregations, whose preachers led the movement. It was past its peak by the late 1840s. It has been described as a reaction against skepticism,
deism, and
rationalism, although why those forces became pressing enough at the time to spark revivals is not fully understood. It enrolled millions of new members in existing
evangelical denominations and led to the formation of new denominations. The
Third Great Awakening refers to a hypothetical historical period that was marked by religious activism in
American history and spans the late 1850s to the early 20th century. It affected
pietistic Protestant denominations and had a strong element of social activism. It gathered strength from the
postmillennial belief that the
Second Coming of Christ would occur after mankind had reformed the entire earth. It was affiliated with the
Social Gospel Movement, which applied Christianity to social issues and gained its force from the Awakening, as did the worldwide missionary movement. New groupings emerged, such as the
Holiness,
Nazarene, and
Christian Science movements. The
Fourth Great Awakening was a Christian religious awakening that some scholars—most notably,
Robert Fogel—say took place in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s, while others look at the era following
World War II. The terminology is controversial. Thus, the idea of a Fourth Great Awakening itself has not been generally accepted. In 1814,
Le Réveil swept through Calvinist regions in Switzerland and France. In 1904, a
Protestant revival in Wales had a tremendous impact on the local population. A part of British modernization, it drew many people to churches, especially Methodist and Baptist ones. A noteworthy development in 20th-century Protestant Christianity was the rise of the modern
Pentecostal movement. Sprung from Methodist and
Wesleyan roots, it arose out of meetings at an urban mission on
Azusa Street in Los Angeles. From there it spread around the world, carried by those who experienced what they believed to be miraculous moves of God there. These Pentecost-like manifestations have steadily been in evidence throughout history, such as seen in the two Great Awakenings. Pentecostalism, which in turn birthed the
Charismatic movement within already established denominations, continues to be an important force in
Western Christianity. In the United States and elsewhere in the world, there has been a marked rise in the
evangelical wing of Protestant denominations, especially those that are more exclusively evangelical, and a corresponding decline in the
mainstream liberal churches. In the post–
World War I era,
Liberal Christianity was on the rise, and a considerable number of seminaries held and taught from a liberal perspective as well. In the post–
World War II era, the trend began to swing back towards the conservative camp in America's seminaries and church structures. In Europe, there has been a general move away from religious observance and belief in Christian teachings and a move towards
secularism. The
Enlightenment is largely responsible for the spread of secularism. Some scholars debate the link between Protestantism and the rise of secularism, and take as argument the wide-ranging freedom in Protestant-majority countries. However, the sole example of France demonstrates that even in Catholic-majority countries, the overwhelming impact of the Enlightenment has brought even stronger secularism and freedom of thought five centuries later. It is more reliable to consider that the Reformation influenced the critical thinkers of the subsequent centuries. Initial philosophers of the Enlightenment were defending a Christian conception of the world, but it was developed together with a fierce and decisive criticism of the Church, its politics, its ethics, its worldview, its scientific and cultural assumptions, leading to the devaluation of all forms of institutionalized Christianity, which extended over the centuries. ==Radical Reformation==